On November 14, 2011, Sonia Alvarado got a 5 A.M. call from the U.S. Army. Her son, Luis, had been injured by an improvised explosive device near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Sonia and her husband, Julio, both Methodist pastors, immediately flew to Germany, where their 24-year-old son lay in a hospital in a coma, tubes crisscrossing in and out of his body. The doctors told the parents to say good-bye; Luis was showing minimal brain activity. “You don't know how stubborn my son is,” Sonia told them.